About a Girl
by Verity Alexander
Summary: A story about a young girls life, mostly set after her Hogwarts time. I tried to make it as faithful to the books as possible. If you spot any errors, please let me know and I will try to fix them.
1. Chapter 1

Hi, my name is Verity Alexander. You might know me as the girl who worked at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, but there is more to my story than that.  
I grew up with my grandmother as a muggle in a town in the Netherlands. My childhood was pretty normal, I went to elementary school like all the other kids. I played outdoors with my friends. I loved barbies and lego and my little pony.  
What wasn't normal of course was that I grew up without my parents. No one knew who my father was. My mother had died when I was very young. I was told she was killed in a gas explosion. Later I learned she was killed by Sirius Black. And even later that it had been Peter Pettigrew.

"A friend of mine is coming to dinner tonight." Grandmother announced one afternoon during the summer holiday when I was eleven. She had few friends, we mostly kept to ourselves.  
"Miss van Dijk?" I asked her. Miss van Dijk was a lady who always brought her little fluffy white dog wherever she went. I didn't care for her much, but I was crazy about animals. "I hope it's not Miss Pardon." Who was a woman who pretended to be a fortuneteller, I say pretended because her predictions were always wrong.  
"Verity!" Grandma exclaimed but she smiled while she did it, she wasn't too fond of the lady herself. "No, it's a man, a professor even, Professor Dumbledore. He's a very old friend of mine from England."  
"A professor? Of what?"  
"He teaches." She explained.

At half past five the bell rang. I was sitting at the dinner table, drawing a horse. Grandma let the guest in. "Aleida! It's so good to see you again!" I heard the man's voice say. I looked up as he walked in and the man looked so much out of the ordinary, I dropped my pencil in amazement. He looked like an old hippie, long hair and a long beard, but he wasn't wearing hippie clothes, no he was wearing a burgundy suit. He didn't look at all like a friend of my grandmother, who looked and dressed very conservative and correct.  
"Hello Verity!" He said. He reached out his hand to me. I got up from my chair and shook it. "My name is Albus Dumbledore." He glanced at my picture. "You draw very well! Do you like animals?"  
"A lot." I replied, "But I don't draw so well."  
He smiled. "Ah! That's the spirit of the young artist!"

He sat down on the couch, I took the chair next to it. Grandma left to make tea.  
"What do you teach?" I asked him.  
"Well, I don't actually teach anymore myself, I'm the headmaster of a school in England. And I will be blunt, I hope to persuade you to come to my school next school year."  
"In England? Is it a boarding school than?"  
"You're very bright. It is one indeed." He smiled.  
I wasn't so amused. Kind as he appeared to be, I didn't like the idea of leaving my grandmother, leaving the country even, to go off to school in England.  
"It's a special school, for special children." He continued. "Gifted children."  
I was smart, I knew that, but I certainly wasn't "gifted"!  
"What do you mean?" I asked.  
"Haven't you ever noticed that you have special abilities? Your grandmother told me that you make your My Little Pony's walk and fly as if they are real animals instead of plastic figures."  
I blushed. I didn't know that my grandmother knew this, I was trying to keep it a secret, I didn't want people to think I was crazy!  
Professor Dumbledore didn't pay attention to my face being on fire, which allowed me to compose myself quickly.  
"My school, Hogwarts, teaches children to control and expand their abilities, we call it magic."

At this moment my grandmother walked back in with tea.  
"Can you do it too than? And how about you grandma?" I asked bewildered.  
"What? Magic?" She asked.  
My mouth dropped open as she made the tea cups fly from her tray and onto the table.  
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" I asked.

This is when she explained to me that my mother had died by the hand of a bad wizard. From then on she thought it would be best for me to grow up away from the wizarding world and we moved out of London to her hometown.

"There are a lot of advantages to being a with, but there are a lot of disadvantages as well. Now that you're capable of making the choice, I want to leave it up to you whether you continue your life here with me or you go to England next month to go to Hogwarts." Grandma said.  
I was silent for a moment. "Can I think about this for a while?" I finally stumbled.  
"Of course you can." Said Professor Dumbledore. "Term starts in four weeks." He smiled at grandmother; "Now, Aleida, what's for dinner?"


	2. Chapter 2

I needn't explain that I chose to go to Hogwarts. I had to think about it for a while of course. I was in shock the first days after Professor Dumbledore's visit, I can't even remember what we had for dinner that evening or what my grandmother and he talked about. All I remember is that it felt like my head would explode from the flood of thoughts and questions.

Three weeks later my grandmother and I were in London. We stayed at the Leaky Cauldron untill the Hogwarts Express would take me to Hogwarts. During this week we had visitors every day, everyone seemed to know my grandmother and wanted to see her now that she was back!  
I cried hard and long the night before I was to leave. I was so scared! Mostly because I was afraid I'd get homesick. Early the next morning my grandmother went out to Diagon Alley and returned with a pair of two way mirrors.  
"I doubt you'll need it once you get there. I'm sure you'll make lots of friends, but if you ever need me, eventhough it's the middle of the night, just call my name into it." She told me.  
Just the thought of having the possibility to speak to her calmed me down and by the time we reached the trainstation that morning, I was no longer nervous, only eager for what was to come.

My grandmother wasn't right, eventhough I could get along with most people at Hogwarts, I didn't make a lot of friends. This didn't bother me, I was kept busy with schoolwork and once that was done I had little energy and desire left to mingle about. I was sorted into Ravenclaw and I was the type of student that didn't draw attention to herself. Though Care of Magical Creatures was one of my best subjects, Professor Kettleburn didn't even know my name by my third year. Neither did Professor Binns by the way, but of course he didn't know anybodies name. I wasn't an enormously talented witch, but I did well at the more practical subjects. I took NEWT level classes in Muggle Studies (a piece of cake considering I grew up as one), Potions, Herbology, History of Magic, Care of Magical Creatures and because of the events at the time, Defence Against the Dark Arts.

In my last year, I made an unlikely friend. I was writing an extra credit essay for History of Magic when I was disturbed by a sixth year with flaming red hair.  
"Goodmorrow young lady, fancy a toffee?" He held out a caramel colored sweet to me. I knew of course who he was and I also knew of his and his brothers reputation. Never trust a gift from the Weasley twins!  
"No thank you, George." I said and returned to my writing.  
"You're Verity aren't you?"  
I looked up, now that I'd lost my concentration I might as well have a chat with him, I figured and I put my quill down. "That's correct."  
"Can't I sway you? How about I take you to the Yule ball?"  
I laughed incredilously "Why would I want to go with you in the first place?"  
"Gosh, I don't know," He said, "Because I'm smart, funny and mightilty goodlooking?"  
I laughed again. "I'm sorry, but no, thank you."

Not much later I learned that the toffee had contained a filling of a love potion. One of the products they were developing for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The twins had tried to test it on every decent looking 5th, 6th and 7th year girl and the ones that had taken it ended up violently in love with them. One of the girls in my dormitory, Gemma Voxley had fallen for it and she talked about Fred and George all night long in her sleep, it was terrible!

After his offering the toffee to me however George started to greet me in corridors and would sometimes strike up small conversations with me. His attentions always scared me a little. Was he trying to play another joke on me?

I went to the Yule Ball alone. I hadn't expected to get a date, I hadn't looked for one and to be frank, I was rather relieved that I wouldn't be required to dance. I had much enjoyed getting ready for the ball, I spend a lot of time on my make up and hair and I was wearing the most gorgeous baby blue dress of satin. At the ball I watched the opening dance and got myself a butterbeer. Then I sat down on one of the couches and relaxed. Cho and Cedric are such a pretty couple! I thought. And there's Harry Potter. He looks so young compared to the other champions. That's a pretty girl he's dancing with..  
To my surprize I saw that George Weasley had taken Gemma Voxley to the ball. That must have been a strong potion! I thought.

Eventhough I was alone, I really enjoyed the feast. The Weird Sisters were amazing. The food was great and the decorations were beautiful. But then after a couple of hours, and having made a couple of rounds across the hall, I decided it was enough and started my journey towards the Ravenclaw common room. But as I turned into the second corridor, I heard someone call my name. I turned around and saw that it was George. He walked up to me, grabbed my waist and said "Has anyone told you how very pretty you look tonight?"  
And then he kissed me.


	3. Chapter 3

Now don't exepect that I sneaked him into our domitory to have hot and steamy sex. Mind that I could have, because all the other girls were still at the Yule Ball. No, I was still an innocent little girl, now that I think back at it.

Instead I looked up at him and felt my insides tingle as I saw the twinkle in his eye. I said "Don't you know that you're not allowed to have Firewhiskey yet, George Weasley?" and with scarlet cheeks, I then turned around and continued my way to the common room.  
Obviously I couldn't sleep that night. At first I was giddy, excited, full of adrenaline but then I grew angry with George. I had had a perfectly enjoyable evening, untill he came along to mess with my head. How would he act the next time I saw him? What would he say to his brother, the other Gryffindors, the whole school..? Were my kissing skills okay? Had he realized that it was my first kiss? I surely hoped I wouldn't be the one who'd be talking about George Weasley in her sleep next!

It turned out that I was driving myself crazy over nothing. Even if George had told Fred about our kiss, he never dropped a clue that he knew or hinted at it, in fact, his behavior towards me hadn't changed at all. I was still this girl that his brother knew, but certainly no special friend of his. And George too didn't start paying more attention to me than before.

My own behavior though had changed. I caught myself lingering whenever George was close. I daydreamed about what it would be like to be his girlfriend. In short, I fell in love with him eventhough I hardly knew him.

It wasn't untill the second Triwizard task that we spoke again. I was sitting at the edge of the lake with my feet in the water, enjoying the sun and reading a book, waiting for the champions to resurface when he sat down next to me.  
"So what do you plan to do after Hogwarts?" "Well," I said "I realize that you probably couldn't care less about what I plan on doing after Hogwarts and for some reason you just needed a conversation starter, but in all honesty I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet."  
"Don't you take a lot of NEWT classes? There must be a lot of possibilities." He said, ignoring my bitchiness.  
"Yes, but there is nothing I can see myself doing for years and years."  
"You could come and work at our shop!" He joked, "That'll never get boring."  
"You don't even have a shop yet."  
"Somehow I get the impression that you don't want to talk to me. Give me a kiss and I'll leave you alone." He said with a big smile.  
Now I smiled too. And I colored. "What do you want from me, Weasley?"  
"A kiss, I just told you!"  
But at that moment Fleur Delacour resurfaced and George left to see the action. 


End file.
